Founded in 1963 and opened in 1967, the museum was conceived following the dismantling of a 15th-century timber-framed house in Bromsgrove in 1962 to provide a location for its reconstruction.

It now houses a collection of domestic, industrial, agricultural and other forms of historic building, the majority dismantled and re-erected.

The Arcon V prefabricated house was originally constructed on Moat Lane in Yardley, Birmingham and was transported to the museum in 1981.

The buildings and structures at the museum were all moved there to save them from demolition they would have faced in their previous locations, either through wilful destruction or neglect.

There are also three fully working analogue telephone exchanges (one of them a mobile TXE2[2]), a manual switchboard and early automatic systems.

Events often have historical themes and feature re-enactors from various time periods, including Wars of the Roses, Victorian, and 1940s.